Iron Kissed

Samuel had a way of making sure people did what he wanted them to.

Testing the violin's temperament, Samuel's bow danced across the strings with a delicate precision won through years…probably centuries of practice. I'd known him all my life, but it wasn't until less than a year ago that I'd found out about those "centuries."

He just didn't act like an old werewolf. Old werewolves were uptight, easy to anger, and especially in this last hundred years of rapid changes (I'm told), were more likely to be hermits than doctors in busy emergency rooms with all that new technology. He was one of the few werewolves I knew who really liked people, human people or werewolf people. He even liked them in crowds.

Not that he would have gone out of his way to perform at a folk music festival. That took a little creative blackmail.

It wasn't me. Not this time.

The stresses of working in an emergency room—especially since he was a werewolf and his reaction to blood and death could be a little unpredictable—meant that he took his guitar or violin to work and played when he had a chance.

One of his nurses heard him play and had him signed up for the festival before he could figure out how to get out of it. Not that he tried very hard. Oh, he made a lot of noise, but I know Samuel. If he really hadn't wanted to do it, a bulldozer wouldn't have gotten him up there.

He tuned the violin with one hand while he held it under his chin and plucked with the other. A few measures of a song and the crowd sat forward in anticipation, but I knew better. He was still warming up. When he really started playing, everyone would know it: he came alive in front of an audience.

Sometimes watching Samuel perform was more like a stand-up comedy act than a concert. It all depended on how he was feeling at the moment.

It happened at last, the magic moment when Samuel sucked his audience in. The old violin made a shivering sound, like an old hoot owl in the night, and I knew he'd decided to be a musician today. All the quiet whispers stopped and every eye lifted to the man on the stage. Centuries of practice and being a werewolf might give him speed and dexterity, but the music came from his Welshman's soul. He gave the audience a shy smile and the mournful sound became song.

While getting my history degree, I'd lost any romantic notions about Bo

As he played the last notes softly, over the top of it he began singing "Barbara Allen," as close to a universally known song among folksingers as "Stairway to Heaven" is to guitarists. After the first few measures, he sang the rest of the first verse a capella. When he hit the chorus, he brought in the violin in eerie descant. By the second verse, invited by his smile, the audience was singing the chorus, too. The singing was tentative until one of the other professional groups who had been walking by on the black-top path stopped and sang, too.

He gave them a nod at the last verse and stopped singing, letting the other group showcase the tight harmony that was their trademark. When the song ended, we cheered and clapped as he thanked his "guest performers." The audience had been filling in as he played and we all scooted a little closer together.

He set the violin down and picked up his guitar to play a Simon and Garfunkel piece. Not even the stupid Jet Ski that kept roaring past along the river a hundred yards away detracted much from his performance. He launched into a silly pirate song then put his guitar down and took up a bodhran—a wide flat drum played with a double-ended stick—and broke into a sea chantey.

I noticed the Cathers, the elderly couple who lived next door to me, sitting on a pair of camp chairs on the other side of the crowd.

"I hope it doesn't rain. We wouldn't want to miss seeing Samuel play," she'd told me yesterday morning when I'd found her tending her flowers. "He's such a nice man."

Of course she didn't have to live with him, I thought, chin on my knee as I watched him play. Not that Samuel wasn't "a nice man," but he was also stubborn, controlling, and pushy. I was stubborn and meaner than he was, though.

Someone whispered a polite "excuse me" and sat in the small square of grass in front of me. I found it a little too close for someone I didn't know, so I scooted away a few inches, until my back rested firmly against Adam's leg.

"I'm glad you talked him into playing," murmured the Alpha werewolf. "He's really in his element in front of a crowd, isn't he?"

"I didn't talk him into it," I said. "It was one of the nurses he works with."

"I once heard the Marrok and both of his sons, Samuel and Charles, sing together," murmured Warren, so softly I doubt anyone else heard him. "It was…" He turned away from the stage and caught Adam's gaze over the top of Kyle's head to shrug his inability to find the words.

"I've heard them," Adam said. "It's not something you forget."

Samuel had picked up his old Welsh harp while we were talking. He played a few notes to give the tech time to rush around and adjust the sound system for the softer tones of the new instrument. He ran his eyes over the crowd and his gaze stopped on me. If I could have scooted away from Adam without sitting on top of a stranger, I would have. Adam saw Samuel's gaze, too, and put a possessive hand on my shoulder.

"Stop that," I snapped.

Kyle saw what was happening and put his arm around my shoulders in a hug, knocking Adam's hand away in the process. Adam snarled softly, but he moved back a few inches. He liked Kyle—and better yet, since Kyle was gay and human, he didn't view him as any kind of threat.

Samuel took a deep breath and smiled, a little stiffly, as he introduced his last piece. I relaxed against Kyle as harp and harper made an old Welsh tune come to life. Welsh was Samuel's first language—when he was upset, you could still hear it in his voice. It was a language made for music: soft, lilting, and magical.

The wind picked up a little, making the green leaves rustle an accompaniment to Samuel's music. When he finished, the sound of the leaves was the only noise for a few heartbeats. Then the jerk on the stupid Jet Ski came buzzing by, breaking the spell. The crowd rose to their feet and broke into thunderous applause.

My cell phone had been vibrating in my pocket off and on for most of the song, so I slipped away while Samuel packed away his instruments and vacated the stage for the next performer.

When I found a relatively quiet place, I pulled out the phone to find that I had missed five calls—all of them from a number I wasn't familiar with. I dialed it anyway. Anyone who called five times in as many minutes was in quite a lather.

It was answered on the first ring.

"Mercy, there is trouble."

"Uncle Mike?" It was his voice, and I didn't know anyone else who spoke with such a thick Irish accent. But I'd never heard him sound like this.

"The human police have Zee," he said.

"What?" But I knew. I had known what would happen to someone who was killing fae. Old creatures revert to older laws when push comes to shove. I'd known when I told them who the killer was that I was signing O'Do

I hadn't expected them to be clumsy enough to attract the attention of the police.

My phone buzzed, telling me that there was another call coming in, but I ignored it. Zee had murdered a man and gotten caught. "How did it happen?"